Mario's Salami
by The Minamotos
Summary: An enchanting and perilous journey for the single most important thing in Mario's life: Food.


**Mario's Salami **

**By Mandi Minamoto**

Mario was hungry.

So, with a mumbled stream of Italian, he lifted his fat self from his couch and stumbled into the kitchen. There he found the one true love of his life.

"Hello, Beautiful," he sighed lovingly. He reached his pudgy hands into the refrigerator and pulled out the biggest, spiciest, juiciest salami in the whole wide fridge. Then he was slapped by a very irritated Peach.

Mario decided to ignore his now ruined social life and began slicing the great, big salami into thick, luscious slices. His big bushy mustache quivered with excitement as the spicy aroma reached his over-sized nose.

Having survived the vicious onslaught of over-used adjectives, Mario proceeded to gather the other ingredients needed to complete his life. First, he grabbed some cheese. Then, he pulled out some lettuce and tomatoes. Finally, he headed for his breadbox to collect the final part of his masterpiece.

There he met the shock of his life.

After recovering from a minor concussion (which came about when his head hit the counter in a dead faint) Mario searched the box anxiously for any sign of his seemingly lost bread. No such luck.

He hastily pulled on his trademark red hat and ran out the door to his neighbor's house.

"Peach!" he hollered, hammering the door with, you guessed it, his hammer. "Pe- whoopsy…"

The door fell in, just barely missing Peach, and Mario was promptly whacked over the head with the golf club she always kept with her.

"N-now, c'mon, Peachy," Mario begged nearly ten minutes later, after Peach flat-out refused to lend him any bread. "You know I didn't mean it…"

"Not only," she replied angrily. "Did you choose a dead cow over me, but you come over here and break down my door with a hammer!"

"Now, honey," Mario said sheepishly. "You know, a salami is pig, not cow."

After several more minutes of Mario's awful convincing skills and Peach's excellent whack-Mario-over-the-head-with-a-frying-pan skills, she finally agreed.

"Well, I suppose I'll lend out some bread, but," Mario nearly collapsed in his rush to the kitchen. "I'll require a favor from you, of course. Um… let's see…" Peach feigned thoughtful-ness while Mario practically killed himself waiting for her answer. "Oh, I know," she finally giggled. "I've been wanting to get some gardening done, but I simply cannot find my watering can. Would you be a dear and go get me a new one?"

"S-sure thing…" Mario said weakly, and he headed out the now-destroyed door. As he stopped in the middle of the street, he tried to think of who would have a watering can. This was stupid, as he was promptly run over by the F-Zero racers who seemed to appear whenever someone stepped onto the road. He quickly made his way to the sidewalk.

"Now let's see…" he thought out loud. "I'm sure a girl will have a watering can. Now that makes… Samus, but I can't picture her owning a garden… Zelda, but she has that creepy butler… JigglyPuff, but she's usually locked in a closet with socks wadded in her mouth…"

After several more thoughtful minutes, Mario decided he'd risk running into Zelda's creepy butler and ask her. He quickly crossed the street, narrowly missing another F-Zero attack, and made his way to her house.

He nervously knocked on the door (using his fists this time) and prayed to whoever would listen that he wouldn't run into Zelda's butler. Apparently, no one was listening.

"Hellooooooooo?" cried Sheik, no more than two inches from Mario's face, crouched down in that weird way she always does. "How can I… help you!"

Resisting the urge to hide under his hat, Mario stepped a few steps back and stuttered, "I-I'm h-h-here to s-s-s-speak with Z-Zelda…"

"Aaaaah…" Sheik said sagely. She quickly turned around and half-ran, half-crawled down the hallway, one hand held over her head like a football player would do. "Come along! We haven't got all day!" Mario had no choice but to follow. As he approached corner, there was a burst of sparkly magic and the 'Legend of Zelda theme song' played in the background. Thankfully, when he turned the corner, Sheik was nowhere in site, and Zelda was sitting in a chair, a copy of Super Luigi on her lap.

"How can I help you?" she asked mysteriously. Mario repeated Peach's request to Zelda, glancing around for any sign of the mummy-butler of doom.

"Hm… a watering can…" Zelda mused. "Well, I'm sure we have one around here somewhere. Of course I'll give it to you. But…" if this FanFic were an anime, a large sweat drop would appear on Mario's head. With a laugh, Zelda held up Super Luigi. "I just finished this book, and I simply must read the next one. Would you be a dear and get me Super Luigi, volume three?" With a sigh, Mario nodded and headed for the door.

"Oh, Sheik!" Zelda called behind him. "Would you kindly show Mario to the door?" There was another poof of sparkly magic, but Mario ran as fast as a fat Italian guy can and was out the door before the theme song had started.

There was really no question as to where he would find Super Luigi, so Mario was saved a lot of painful F-Zero run-ins. He simply had to walk down the street to his brother's house.

Luigi's house really stood out. Whereas his neighbors (what, you wanna know who they are? Well, I'm not gonna tell you.) kept their yards tidy and neat, Luigi's was over grown with weeds and waist-high grass. His house was half squashed to the ground, after a nasty run-in with Bowser, but he hadn't bothered to fix it.

"Hey-a, Bro!" Mario called, wrestling his way through Luigi's jungle-err, yard. Luigi didn't reply, he simply looked up from his Gameboy™ and sighed.

"Listen," Mario continued, having survived the killer grass and now making his way across the squished porch of doom. "I need to borrow Super Luigi from you. Uh, Zelda needs it and-"

Luigi cut in with another sigh. "What's the point in books? The stupid Nintendo co. won't make it into a video game. What's the point in anything? Might as well just eat worms. Big… fat ones…" thus saying, he reached into a bucket and pulled out a fat, wiggling worm.

"Ew!" Mario exclaimed. "Worms are gross. I'll go get you some real food, bro, if you give me Super Luigi."

Luigi sighed again, which Mario took as a 'yes'. He made his way back through the killer grass and to the sidewalk.

Before he even considered where he would find food, Mario's eyes fell on Donkey Kong (hereafter known as DK, because Donkey Kong is fun to abbreviate)'s tree home, which was surrounded by more trees filled to bursting with big, ripe, yellow bananas. Without pausing (which would allow the evil F-Zero racers another chance to kill him) Mario ran across the street and to DK's house.

He found the over-sized monkey sitting on the ground and scratching his head like an idiot. Apon seeing Mario, he leapt to his feet and proceeded to do a strange gorilla-ish dance, filled with random squeals and grunts.

"Ooh eeeea ooh oh AAAIIEEE!" he cried.

"Uh, yeah, listen," Mario began. "I need some bananas so I can get Super Luigi so I can get a watering can so I can get some bread so I can make a salami sandwich."

DK scratched his head stupidly.

"Yeah, so, I'm sure you want something in return, right? Uh…" DK jumped up and down and held up an old boot. "What's that boy? You want… an egg?" DK grunted frantically. "Hey, man, I can't understand you. You sound like a cross between a donkey and King Kong."

DK pulled out a chalkboard and wrote in big, clear letters, "Me wants new boot."

"Alright then!" said Mario proudly. "I'll be right back with some eggs for you. Then you can have that omelet you wanted." He walked off, leaving DK with another confused look.

I could describe his trip to Yoshi's house, which included flying sausage, a creepy salesman, and (of course) angry F-Zero racers, but I won't.

"-And so now I need an egg. You'll lend me an egg, won't you, old buddy old pal?"

"Habbida HEE!" Yoshi said happily. Then he pulled out a book, which had Grow your Eyebrows written in bold letters, with Look Tough underneath it. Mario took it and scanned over the cover, which showed a guy with big eyebrows kicking a short kid's butt.

"You want me to… find you another book on how to… grow… eyebrows?" Mario asked slowly.

"Yaoo," Yoshi nodded.

"Well, where the heck am I supposed to find one of those!"

Yoshi pointed at the bottom of the book's cover, where the author's name was printed in a small font.

"Bowser! You want me to get you a book from Bowser!"

"Ya,"

"Fine," Mario groaned. As he left, he added, "This'd better be a good sandwich…"

Moments later he was standing before Bowser's house-turned-evil. The sky suddenly grew dark and lightning flashed, illuminating the crooked tower rising from a boiling pool of lava. With a groan, Mario did a series of macho fat guy moves, and was soon at Bowser's front door. While he debated whether this or Zelda's butler were worse, Mario gingerly knocked on the door.

The earth shook as Bowser's feet hit the floor, and he burst open the door quite suddenly, which almost pushed Mario into the lava-moat-of-french-fried-death.

"WHAAAAAT!" Bowser roared, sticking his big nose towards Mario's even bigger nose. "I'M BUSY TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

"I need to borrow a book," Mario held up Yoshi's book. "On growing eyebrows."

"WHY WOULD I GIVE YOU ANYTHING!" Bowser cried, obviously having trouble with his Caps Lock button. "I DON'T LIKE YOU, REMEMBER?"

"I, uh-" Mario thought for a minute. "I'll stop kicking your butt and making you look like an idiot." Bowser didn't seem to like that idea, but he soon came up with another.

"GIMME A NUCLEAR BALL OF ENERGY (FOR TAKING OVER THE WORLD) AND MAYBE I'LL GIVE YOU YOUR BOOK!"

"A nuclear ball of energy (for taking over the world)? Where am I supposed to get one of those?"

"DUNNO; THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM." Bowser said before walking into his tower and slamming the door behind him. Mario repeated his macho fat guy moves to get back to the sidewalk.

"Who has nuclear balls of energy (for taking over the world)?" Mario wondered. "Uhn… Doctor Mario doesn't… Captain Falcon might, but he's too busy running people over… no way do Nana and Popo have one… JigglyPuff doesn't-" he broke off. JigglyPuff didn't have nuclear balls of energy (for taking over the world), but her housemate probably did!

"Chu?" Pikachu asked, moments later, as he answered the door.

"Hey, I gotta talk with Mewtwo. It's important… ish..." Mario explained. Pikachu scurried off, and after a few minutes of awkward standing, Mewtwo came back.

"What?" he asked impatiently. Mario noticed the balled up socks in one hand and decided to speak quickly.

"CanIborrowaballofneclearenergy (fortakingovertheworld)?" he sputtered out. Fortunately, Mewtwo used his super-psychic powers to translate what he had said.

"A ball of nuclear energy (for taking over the world)?" Mewtwo repeated. "No way."

"Aw, c'mon Mewtwo. I'll do you a favor; how bout I get you a nice hat, y'know, to cover up th-"

"No." Mewtwo repeated firmly, and he slammed the door shut before Mario could protest.

Mario sighed and wandered back to the street. "I guess I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way," he said, rolling up his sleeves in an I'm-gonna-kick-your-butt kind of way.

Then, he mooched a ride off an F-Zero racer to the grocery store, where he bought a loaf of bread. Then, he took it back home and finished his sandwich. It wasn't really that good - with the salami having been left out all day, and the lettuce all brownish from not being in the refrigerator - so Mario threw it away.

The End


End file.
